Here’s an American hero with wings, or in this case, rotors. Lt. Glenn Hill serves the U.S. Navy from the skies piloting an MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter as part of Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 3 at Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego, California.
Hill graduated from Texas A&M University in 2017 with a bachelor’s degree in industrial distribution, then joined the Navy. He has served for eight years, driven to fly, give back to his country and see the world, all in one.
HSC 3 painstakingly trains helicopter pilots and aircrewmen to fly and maintain Sea Hawk helicopters. It’s the Navy’s most advanced rotary wing maritime platform by a long shot. Missions undertaken include Airborne Mine Countermeasures (AMCM), Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR), Anti-Surface Warfare (ASUW), Combat Logistics and Medevac.
The Navy celebrates its 250th anniversary this year. As with the sea hawk, the U.S. Navy’s cutting-edge equipment is needed for cutting-edge missions, as it has been for the past two and a half centuries.
Navy officials state: “America is a maritime nation and for 250 years, America’s Warfighting Navy has sailed the globe in defense of freedom.”
90 per cent of global commerce travels by sea, and access to the Internet is dependent on the security of undersea fiber-optic cables. It is paramount to the security of the United States that we hire, recruit, and retain talented people like Hill.
With so much at stake comes the opportunity for real achievements – and Lt. Hill has certainly achieved over the last eight years.
“My biggest accomplishment is being in different leadership positions that have challenged me,” Hill said. “Additionally, my other accomplishments are getting the Carrier Air Wing Five Top Rotary Wing Pilot award and getting to fly multiple medevacs across the world.”
The Navy operates far forward, around the world, and around the clock, reaching new heights every single day.
“Serving in the Navy gives me a chance to give back to my nation,” Hill said. “With the position that I am in now as an instructor pilot, I get the opportunity to teach and mold future naval aviators as they come through HSC 3. This challenges me every day to be both a better person and instructor.”
Hill shouts out to four people for helping make his Navy career possible.
“I’d like to give a shoutout to my mother and father, Cynthia and Ricky Hill, and my sister, Julie Hill, for all their love and support,” Hill added. “I would like to thank my wife, Natalie, for being a rock through this entire journey and setting this bar high for me so I may continue to be a great man and great husband.”
With so many aircraft to fly, Hill doesn’t want to stay on the ground too long.
“I would like to become a department head and continue flying in other types, models and series of aircraft,” Hill said. “I would also like to become an assistant NATOPS [Naval Air Training and Operating Procedures Standardization] instructor, giving yearly evaluations for all personnel on check rides for helicopters, and an instructor to teach new students on how to land on naval ships for the first time.”
